The American Nurses Association (ANA) has chosen a winner for its first video contest on nurse leadership. The winner, Mandy Mayer, RN, BSN, won with a video portraying her role as a school nurse. Click here to read the ANA’s press release and view the winning video.   Read More »

Today marks National Nurses Day, the last day of Nurses Week, and the birthday of Florence Nightingale, who developed modern nursing. Nurses all over the world have celebrated their profession this week, and the American Nurses Association (ANA) has held a series of events. On May 10, the ANA offered a webinar entitled “Lead from where you stand,” that discussed the importance of nurse leadership, reports an ANA press release. The...  Read More »

The American Nurses Association (ANA) is holding a contest for nurses to make their own videos sharing what leadership means to them. In two minutes or less, the ANA asks registered nurses or nursing students to share what the phrase “I am a Nurse; I am a Leader” means to them. A panel of ANA judges will select the top five videos and then post them online for the public to vote and select their favorite. The contest ends May 1 and...  Read More »

An ambulance service in North Carolina has launched a new program that lets people who call 911 with minor concerns speak to a nurse before deciding whether to be transported to a hospital by ambulance. Nurses at Carolinas Medical Center and Presbyterian Hospital, in Charlotte, NC, are on hand to speak to people who call 911 with minor problems such as nausea, nosebleeds, or constipation, if they prefer not to be immediately transported...  Read More »

Annual competency assessments can sometimes be a tiresome task for nurses and for educators. Every organization completes assessment differently. At St. John Medical Center in Tulsa, OK, staff were bored of the repetitiveness of annual competency assessment, while managers were frustrated with the lack of staff completing requirements. To get staff interested and engaged in the competency assessment, educators decided to hold a fair around...  Read More »

A just-released study says nurses are afraid to speak up if they notice physicians making mistakes. The study, The Silent Treatment: Why Safety Tools and Checklists Aren’t Enough to Save Lives , was conducted by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) and the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) in partnership with VitalSmarts, a corporate and organizational performance training company. The study involved...  Read More »

Imagine being a premature baby. How does it feel to go from a safe, comfortable uterus to the bright, loud, and often painful world of a hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)? Neonatal nurses at Martin Memorial Health Center in Palm City, FL, got a chance to find out when they partook in a program called “Preemie for a Day.” The educational program let nurses experience what it was like to go from birth to admission into...  Read More »

As a nurse, have you ever been praised for your work with a patient? The Boston Globe is holding a Salute to Nurses award program for people to nominate local nurses who have exceeded their usual duties and provided noteworthy care. The nurses’ stories will be told through stories, photos, and videos. The awards will be announced in early May. Check out the site to read some of the heartfelt stories from previous years’ winners. Does...  Read More »

What would you do if you saw lasagna, pizza, cupcakes, or chocolates spread out on a table on your floor? You’d eat it, right? Theresa Brown, RN, explains just how much nurses love to eat in The New York Times Well blog Patients and their families often bring their nurses gifts of some type of food. With stress eating a common problem, Brown explains that it’s easy for nurses to eat their feelings. However, the food also represents a...  Read More »

A new policy at Ottawa Hospital in Canada has nurses angry about being forced to ditch their cartoon, colorful scrubs for a standard version. The hospital’s Chief Nursing Executive Ginette Rodger says the new dress code is meant to make it easier on patients to distinguish nurses from other hospital staff, reports Canada.com. The new policy also includes lab coats that must show the title of practitioners and have to be worn whenever practitioners...  Read More »